Okay, good news!

The customs process actually went super fast. The books were released yesterday afternoon, so we are A-OK for the Launch Party.

The first 80 book pre-orders will start getting autographed/sketched today. I’ll be trying to ship them out in waves over the next week or so. The next shipment of books to Toronto should come soon, at which point the remaining pre-orders will all get taken care of.

Got this note from our shipping receiver:

“I am sorry I am advising you so late but I have just been advised that your shipment will be pulled for exam by Canada customs. I will let you know as soon as everything is settled.”

That shipment is the chunk of Makeshift Miracle books that I need for the launch party and to start sending out pre-orders. So they’ve arrived here in Toronto, I just can’t get them yet. How long this exam takes and what’s involved, no one seems to know. We’ve been advised not to bug them as then it could coincidentally take even longer to be completed.

Lovely.

Cross your fingers everyone, or this book launch party could be lacking the actual books.

The Wii is running full steam… thoughts so far:

Console – Initial set up was a cinch, as was connecting to my wireless router and downloading firmware updates. The machine looks and runs great. When my component cables come in the mail it’ll look even better on my TV, but even now it’s quite sharp.

Wii Sports – This game is so simple, yet horribly addictive. My arms are sore from Tennis and Baseball, but it felt awesome. Bowling feels the most natural out of all of them, with Tennis a close second. The refinements Nintendo made to the game even from when I tried it over the summer at E3 are pretty substantial. Considering it’s a pack-in game with the system, it’s a winner through and through… probably the easiest way to get a non-video gamer to try video games and love them. I can’t wait to play 4 player simultaneous Tennis matches.

Monkey Ball – I haven’t delved too far into this yet, but what I have tried of it was quite fun. Once you get used to the controls directing the balls down the ramp makes sense. The challenge level ramps up pretty fast, so this one looks like it will keep me on my toes.

Rayman – The crazed rabbits are amazing. The mini-games I’ve tried so far are solid. The whole thing has a great attitude and innovative uses for the Wii controller scheme. This is a game that’s going to have people jumping around my living room like idiots.

Zelda – Haven’t had a chance to do much more than the initial little bit. No combat yet, just learning the controls. It’s smooth so far and the remote-nunchuk controller combo feels pretty intuitive as I chill on the couch and explore.

Mii’s – The Mii avatar maker is a freakin’ hoot! Creating simplistic caricatures of friends, family or whoever and sending them to other users on your Friends list is great. I’ve made little Mii avatars of Me, my brother, my parents, a couple friends, Ghandi, Elvis, Hitler, Einstein, Freud, Jesus and Samuel L. Jackson. It makes for an eclectic looking baseball team in Wii Sports, lemme tell you.

Wii Glee:

Good to his word, Clarence hooked a few Udon-ers up with a pre-order at Square One’s Microplay store. Thanks, Clarence!

Just got through the door. Unpack and hook up time.

Even from the trailer I wasn’t sure I wanted to go see Borat, but when something gets a 92% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes and almost universal beaming comedic praise, I figure there’s something more going on, that I’m going to see something genuinely funny.

There’s a whole area of comedy that I don’t seem to “get”. It never has the desired affect on me and I end up more annoyed than amused almost every time… and that’s exactly why I hated watching Borat last night.

I absolutely loathe humor generated through brutal embarrassment. Maybe it’s because I grew up a timid little dork who sometimes got picked on or caught in awkward situations, I don’t know. But watching normal people get confronted by an insistent inappropriate asshole doesn’t doesn’t fill me with glee or make me laugh. I gather no joy from watching people struggle through those moments.

The weirdest part is that a lot of reviews about Borat are claiming it shines a light on bigotry in American culture – racism hidden just under the surface until people feel they can get away with saying what they really think. That’s horseshit. 3 of the people Borat talks to are outwardly bigoted (literally one for each of the major taboos – sexism, race and sexual orientation) and even those are enhanced by the editing. Every other one is implied because they briefly agree with the terrible stuff Borat is saying or politely ignore it to carry on with what they’re doing.

When confronted with a disruptive foreigner spouting bigoted sentiments in semi-capable English, would any of us try to extensively educate them on the spot – let alone on camera?! Probably not. We’d do our best to get through the situation with a bit of grace and continue our day – that doesn’t mean we’re bigots on our way to the next Klan meeting. Most of the people Borat deals with show a surprising amount of patience for his shock-value-laden actions and words. They put on a pretty good face and just try to finish the interaction. When six polite people invite you to dinner and you shit in a plastic bag and show it to them, they’re going to react very awkwardly while they think it’s a cultural mistake and then with anger when they realize it’s intentional. That’s not humor as far as I’m concerned. Saying awful things about a village of people and having them smile for the camera as you do it because they don’t understand your language isn’t funny either. You gave poor villagers a bit of money and told them to smile and dance for the camera, that’s all they know. Calling them whores and rapists to their face doesn’t make me laugh.

I’m shocked at the mountains of praise Borat’s getting. How could so many reviewers be doubled over with laughter at this? I was ready to walk out at one point because the concept of punking ordinary people was getting so foul and out of control.

Oddly, I generally find the Jackass TV show and movies extremely funny. That may seem incredibly lowbrow given what I wrote above, but here’s the night and day difference for me – in every Jackass skit the morons choose to endanger themselves and do stupid shit while we watch them carry it out. Pain, stupidity and embarrassment – they’ve got a clear understanding of what they’re in for and they do it anyways. Some of it makes me gag or shake my head, but there’s never any doubt or guilt. It’s slapstick taken to a ridiculous over the top extreme. Again, the only bits of Jackass I don’t like are when they involve unsuspecting normal people into their shenanigans.

Borat shows that some Americans are stupid, bigoted assholes and the rest are pretty normal embarrassed people capable of some amazing restraint. That’s no comedic revelation or worthy of praise.

Forgot to mention:

My parents can be bizarrely cute sometimes. They actually mailed me a Congratulations card about getting the book published. I was totally floored by it. The little note inside was really nice:

Cute and mushy! I actually got a bit choked up by it, seriously.

PS: I think Mom wanted to use the word author instead of comic book making nerd. 🙂

Tying in to my earlier post about the Makeshift book launch party, here’s a promo image I illustrated to help promote the event:

It was fun taking the things I’ve been learning about Photoshop and revisiting Iris, especially since there’s very few pictures of her in full color. The journey from starting the story back in 2001 to seeing the book on store shelves is almost over.

If you want to see a step-by-step of how the piece progressed with a few tips, you can check it out here.

Info on the Makeshift Launch Party is up! I would be ecstatic if you (yes you) and many, many others could make it out for the party. Come to buy a book, or hear me blather or share a drink. Friends, family, students, strangers, Karaoke Kings… everyone is welcome.

If you’re an artist of any stripe, come down for the book launch and then stay for the Industry Night to do some schmoozing and hanging out.

———————————————-
MAKESHIFT MIRACLE / RAGMOP LAUNCH PARTY
Featuring Jim Zubkavich and Rob Walton

When: Thursday, November 30th, 7:00 PM
Where: The Victory Café, 595 Markham Street (Just down the street from The Beguiling)
Admission: FREE

We’re giving you LOTS of advance-notice on this one (Christmas-party season is just around the corner), but we’re doing a combined launch for two new books from Toronto authors and we want you there!

After many many years, Rob Walton’s cartoon/comedy/conspiracy series RAGMOP comes to its startling conclusion, in graphic novel form! Whether you’re a RAGMOP reader from a long time ago who’s been patiently waiting for the series end, or someone who wonders what a Hanna Barbara version of The Invisibles would be like (trust me: awesome), THE COMPLETE RAGMOP graphic novel is for you. “…sly, snide, perceptive, exciting, gut-bustingly funny, and utterly indescribable… RAGMOP is a work of frenetic brilliance.” – Slings & Arrows Comic Guide.

Also launching THE SAME DAY is the collection of Jim Zubkavich’s MAKESHIFT MIRACLE, a graphic novel originally serialized online and now available in an incredibly inexpensive print edition. MAKESHIFT combines fantasy and adventure into a pretty remarkable coming-of-age story for all ages. “A melancholy, enchantingly drawn meditation on imagination and yearning.” – Scott McCloud, author of MAKING COMICS

The creators of both graphic novels will be doing short presentations from their books, followed by signings. This also ties in to the final Industry Night of the year, which will be held at more-or-less the same time so it should be a whole lot of fun.

Amazing conversation yesterday with Ray and Stacy about nostalgia. We did talk about our past and our experiences, but most of it was about nostalgia itself – the act of remembering the past with your current knowledge and wisdom tacked along with it. How we view those experiences and what we see in hindsight from them. Although I’m almost always the blabbermouth in conversations, I knew this was a damn engrossing talk because I didn’t feel my typical kneejerk desire to overwhelm things with my own words. Good talk and solid inspiration = good friends, simple as that.

This weekend I’ve been apartment productive and geeky at the same time. Beyond cleaning and laundry stuff I also rearranged my living room so there’s more space to move in front of the TV in preparation for the arrival of the Nintendo Wii next weekend. That should be quite fun indeed. If all goes as planned I’ll be getting the system, a swack of extra controllers and games and then having a few people over to jump around and have fun. Like the DS, the Wii seems built around social video gaming, which is right up my alley lately.

Otherwise, I updated my deviantart page and am working away as usual.